Well, that just happened. The annual calendar changed over yesterday, and I barely felt it. I suppose that’s not true. Obviously, something ticked inside me, as I’m writing a blog post for the first time in at least 5 years. Not sure why it happened this year, but I’m actually feeling the need to get (re?)activated in the realm of writing and sharing thoughts, even if no one is on the other end to receive them.

My 2016 ended with a decent dose of time reflecting on how I got to “here,” and where it was all leading. My notion of where things would be in a year from now, and beyond, was vague enough that I figured I need to be more intentional about how I’m steering towards the future. Thus, I’m using writing as a form of declaring intention. The past couple years have taught me a lot about the act of being explicit as a way to unmuddy waters, get to the best ideas, then act on them. Hopefully, typing up a bit of prose on a regular basis will help me do the same.

As part of mulling over what I should focus my 2017 on, I boiled it down to three notions: learning, building, sharing. I’m going to take a moment to expound upon each of these.

Learning

I don’t feel I’ve every really stopped learning during the whole of my career. Sure, I’ve had high points and low points in the pacing, but there’s rarely a day where I don’t feel I didn’t or couldn’t learn something. So, it’s probably a bit of a cheater to say I’m going to “focus” on this thing that I’ve always done, but this is where I add some intention. I have a few areas I know I want to learn more about in the next year. I’ll spare you the details for now, but I’ll work on revealing those as they happen, so you can join in the fun.

Building

We learn by doing, so that’s where this one comes in. I have some coding projects I want to develop, some presentations ideas to pitch, some thoughts to write. These are all about creating, which is the reason I got into technology in the first place. Despite being in various management roles over the past 10 years, I sill have this yearning to make things. Yes, I have been helping create teams as a manager, leader, and coach, but this year, I want to add some tangibles back into the mix.

Sharing

I only know of a couple people whom I would maybe consider 100% selfish beings. And that’s with being aware of a good number of folks who will never make it anywhere near my Christmas card list solely for their self-centered natures. What I mean to say is, nailing it in the Learning and Building arenas doesn’t do a lot of good, unless others get to somehow see, hear, or experience from the things I’ve learned or created. I intend to create regular posts as one of the ways to share and reflect on my learnings, as well as progress and insights in my building pursuits. Stay tuned for incoming progress reports.

In thinking back on previous blogging endeavors, I was really just doing it to do it. This time around, I feel setting the stage with this level of intention puts me in a better place to stick with it. Time will tell, I guess.

You could also say this post serves as setting some New Year’s resolutions for myself. I still prefer calling them intentions, but that’s just me. What are you planning to do with your 2017?